The
Ragpickers' Wine
TRANSLATED BY C. F. MACINTYRE
In the muddy maze of some old
neighborhood,
Often, where the street lamp gleams
like blood,
As the wind whips the flame, rattles
the glass,
Where human beings ferment in a
stormy mass,
One sees a ragpicker knocking against
the walls,
Paying no heed to the spies of the
cops, his thralls,
But stumbling like a poet lost in
dreams;
He pours his heart out in stupendous
schemes.
He takes great oaths and dictates
sublime laws,
Casts down the wicked, aids the
victims' cause;
Beneath the sky, like a vast canopy,
He is drunken of his splendid
qualities.
Yes, these people, plagued by
household cares,
Bruised by hard work, tormented by
their years,
Each bent double by the junk he
carries,
The jumbled vomit of enormous Paris,—
They come back, perfumed with the
smell of stale
Wine-barrels, followed by old
comrades, pale
From war, mustaches like limp flags,
to march
With banners, flowers, through the
triumphal arch
Erected for them, by some magic
touch!
And in the dazzling, deafening
debauch
Of bugles, sunlight, of huzzas and drum,
Bring glory to the love-drunk folks
at home!
Even so, wine pours its gold to
frivolous
Humanity, a shining Pactolus;
Then through man's throat of high
exploits it sings
And by its gifts reigns like
authentic kings.
To lull these wretches' sloth and
drown the hate
Of all who mutely die, compassionate,
God has created sleep's oblivion;
Man added Wine, divine child of the
Sun.
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